Illusion of greatness

Patrick Macias, SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER

Published 4:00 am, Monday, August 21, 1995

The holy grail of the home video game industry is affordable virtual reality. Such a thing, long dreamed of in popular culture and currently available only at great expense, could deliver unimaginable thrills for game players and equally unimaginable profits for companies and software developers.

The realization of such a dream comes one step closer to fruition with the release Monday of Nintendo's Virtual Boy, a product that is, according to Nintendo, "the world's first true three-dimensional, virtual immersion, video game system."

Retailing for $179.95, the portable Virtual Boy is a cross between a Walkman, a Viewmaster toy and a Nintendo Gameboy. Players plug in a game cartridge, grab the double-grip controller, look into the viewfinder and play video games in 3-D with stereo sound.

The 32-bit Virtual Boy is based on LED technology - light-emitting diodes, the stuff of digital clock displays, electronic marquees and road signs. This means the Virtual Boy presents its games in just one color: red. The three-dimensional graphics are a result of using two separate flat screen images to fool the eye into perceiving a 3-D image, much like how a 3-D movie or comic book works.

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Anyone expecting an amazing virtual reality experience like in the movies "Lawnmower Man" or "Disclosure" will be disappointed. The final effect is more like watching "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" with red and blue cardboard 3-D glasses. Older gamers might rather play Street Fighter II for the millionth time, but younger should enjoy the illusion of depth and the easy-to-play games.

Packaged with Virtual Boy is the cartridge Mario's Tennis, with four other games currently available for purchase in the $39.95 to $49.95 range. These include: Teleroboxer, a first-person perspective boxing game; Galactic Pinball, with four separate pinball "tables" ; Virtual League Baseball; and Red Alarm, a cool space shooter that's visually the most impressive of the bunch.

While none of the games in this first crop is ground-breaking beyond the 3-D gimmick, more than 100 top software companies - including Acclaim, Hudson Soft, Ocean, Bullet-Proof Software and Rare - have signed on to produce games for Virtual Boy. It may just be a matter of time before something like Mortal Kombat or Doom appears to help make Virtual Boy a must-buy.

A $25 million ad campaign, including a sweepstakes promotion with NBC-TV and a Virtual Boy rental program at Blockbuster Video, should help Nintendo in the face of approaching competition. The next few weeks alone will see the release of two revolutionary home video game systems: Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, both with incredible graphics and top-notch games.

With Nintendo's long-awaited Ultra-64 system delayed until next year, Virtual Boy stands as the product for Nintendo to push to maintain its share of the video game market in 1995.

"No one around you knows what's going on. You can't play the Virtual Boy in the presence of friends because they can't see the games or hear anything. It's a very isolated device that detaches the user from everyone else."

For now, game players seem to want to give Virtual Boy a chance. Writes Teek421 in a video game news group, "Hey! The Virtual Boy is from Nintendo! 'Nuff said! When was the last time Nintendo failed with one of their systems, much less games that they have released? Nintendo wouldn't put it out if they were not confident in its chances of making it." &lt;

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